In previous Tes games the Theif archtype has always had a damage inflicting skill. Now the Archery has been added to the Warrior archtype there is not a skill that you can use to kill something. Now i know it is kind of stupid as in, you have to kill things it get through the game. So i am wondering for people who intend on roleplaying a pure theif what are you going to resort to? Again i know that by instinct you are going to take out whatever weapon you have and go to town on the on whatever is attacking you. I am saying from a strictly Theif only skills roleplayed person what are you going to do?

Just because a skill is under the warrior archtype, it does not mean you can't role-play archery as a thief or ranger skill.

Are you letting the game categories dictate your role-play?

Taking just skills whose constellations fall under the sign of the thief is what we are talking about. Being 'pure' doesn't really matter. Think of a character, think of the skills he/she would use, there's your roleplay, not fitting to some game mechanic. You would be a pretty odd mage if the only reason you don't practice any alchemy is because it is 'listed under stealth'. Want to use a bow, use a bow.
Having said that, think about it outside of what we are used to in games. What is a thief doing with a bow? If you were going to break in somewhere, would a longbow be on your list of essential kit?

I think the more important issue here is leveling a combat skill. Most thieves would use the thief guardian stone, and because of stealth not having a combat skill, a thief's combat skill would level 30% slower than most of their other skills. I wouldn't mind if it weren't for the fact that a combat skill is essential to 99% of classes.

There are 13 different guardian stones and they effect different things.

I before E, except after C.

Yeah, I know, but it's fairly obvious that we will find the 3 main ones before any of the others, unless we don't start off with the main quest.
I don't think it will be a problem once people memorise where all the guardian stones are, but on our first one or two playthroughs, it will be a little annoying.

The archetypes are completely and irrevocably meaningless....

Or you could just pick the combat oriented guardian stone so it's less annoying.


I mean, if I were to choose a spellsword type class, should I be annoyed that the first 3 stones don't cater to every skill I want to level?

To put this 30% into perspective, If a skill in Oblivion is both one of your major skills, and in your specialisation, you get an experience bonus of 122%. 30% is not likely to break your character's progression.

But then most of your other skills would level less quickly. With a spellsword it's a little different because you would most likely have a pretty even split between combat and magic skills, meaning you just have to make a decision in regards to which type you want to give the increase to. But you would expect a pure thief to have as much of a purity advantage as a pure mage or warrior.
Once again, I'm saying this is only a small problem and will be completely not-existent once people have familiarised themselves with the locations of the stones, unless of course they RP someone who doesn't know the environment or whatever, but let's not get into all that.

Edit: Also, what's the bet that there is a battlemage-esque guardian stone? Pretty good chance.